While discussing the video Kate shared that she watched a TV show this weekend called Off The Map. This show was about a man who was delusional on pain killers. It was found out that this man was a Nazi. The man had been asking to die however the nurse would not let that happen since she wanted him to get justice. Ben says he was a living artifact. He himself is history. Ben then told how the worse thing to say in Yiddish is 'may his name be blotted out.' Many Jews have said this about hitler, but of course to a historian it would be unthinkable to exclude hitler from history.
Going back to the video we watched, Ben asked, "Did anyone think about Glenn Beck when reading Thomas?" Before discussing the reading, however, we discussed Adorno. Adorno was a student of Weber. He was a mix of Christian and Jewish. He left Germany during the war to avoid being killed. Adorno is a big old Marxist. Adorno is not the traditional Hegelian, has his own twist. He is a traditional way of thinking. He takes Hegel puts it in his head and turns it up straight. Then he comes up with ideas.
The walls in the room were clear. Ben was pissed to say the least. Ben sarcastically said, "best learning environment are blank walls". Even the latin class started posting writings on the walls. But Ben said the thugs were sent in to clear the walls. Ben says he is just fighting the establishment.
Adorno also wrote the course of German history. We looked at the passage from Adorno at the beginning of Thomas on page 3. The passage was "In America where, unlike Germany, the idea of democracy has a great tradition and a strong emotional appeal, it would be highly impractical for any fascist leader to attack democracy itself, as Nazi propagandas freely did." The idea of democracy was not considered the best idea, as it is in America. As Germany put together their own democracy they made Article 48 that says in the event of a state of emergency the ruler has the power to suspend the constitution and gain all power. Hitler was elected democratically. Then became a dictator by calling a state of emergency. Ben shared an Adorno quote that said "the state has a monopoly on use of legitimate force". So who has the state of monopoly to basically do whatever they want and get away with it. An example would be the police. If a police punches someone he can claim he had a reason and has enough credibility from his career; same as how police are allowed to carry guns around anywhere.
Ben shared a link that Sophie had sent him to the class. The link showed a book by Martin Luther Thomas titled Soviet Tendencies in America.
Britney said that she related Adorno's article on Thomas was similar to Milbank's article on Beck. On page 24 of Adorno we looked at the quote that read "the deliberate fiction of personal closeness, warmth, and intimacy." We related this quote back to the video we opened class with. Beck is seen crying. He is attempting to make the audience believe him. We also related this to a quote on page 7 of Adorno.
Carrie brought a quote to the classes attention. On page 6 of Adorno, "He is consciously and emphatically emotional as part of his technique." This quote is really important and brought us to a new keyword. Our new keyword is dialectic which is basically the idea that a thing in history has part of itself and opposite of itself in the same phenomenon. An example of this would be the thesis and anti-thesis are in dialectic and will both produce the synthesis. Adorno's thesis s capitalism produces antithesis which is the working class, and the synthesis would be revolution.
Naturally we figure people cannot be rationally irrational, however history is full of this. Glenn Beck puts vapor under his eyes to make him cry. He would be an example of rationally irrational. Britney brings us back to Howard Beale. Is Howard Beale like Glenn Beck? All news people such as John Stewart or Glenn Beck are related to Howard Beale. They are all saying "I am mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore" An upcoming reading will relate to this check out page 229 in course packet. How is Glenn Beck and Howard Beale different. Alyssa shared that Glenn Beck does this cause its what he always does. Howard Beale was fired, lost his wife, etc. Glenn Beck is more conscious of his actions.
We all moved to an activity where we stood up in a circle. We imaged the circle was a target and we stood on the target to see how much we all understood the readings. However, everyone was on the same page and only took one step in the circle. Then Ben had us see who we first connected eye contact with and that we have not really talked to before. As we got into partners I was partnered with Alyssa. In partners we discussed our reactions to Network; then chose a passage from Adorno and Weber that related to Network.
When we went back to big group discussion, Emily shared that what she remembered from Network was how Howard was overtaken by the World Spirit and woke up to hearing spirits talking. We watched the clip in class. After Howard is taken over by the world spirit he then faints when the world spirit leaves him. Mandy related this scene back to page 15 of Adorno "Messenger Device". Britney points out that that the person gives the message but they are not the ones that hold the ideas. Ben states that it is somewhat religious and relates to how God speaks through prophets. Mandy was curious about this scene. She didn't understand why it randomly cut to the scene of him dreaming with the world spirit. Ben says he thought it was more than just bad editing. It appears that this scene helps show how Howard is less like Glenn Beck.
Carrie related Howard to Beck. Howard tells the audience to yell and do things such as Beck he leads by bad example. We looked at a passage on page 7 of Adorno. Ben took it a step farther. Once you do something bad it leads to even worse things. Once you do something that is not MN nice you can do other things that are also not MN nice such as nazism. It leads to the questions oh how did people do this? After the holocaust people all have to wonder how did it get this horrible especially in an advanced country. Adorno tries to answer these questions.
Going back to the bedroom world spirit scene, we questioned if Beale was nuts or had the spirit. Diane said maybe he had the spirit. The thing that is important is that the audience and Beale think he has the spirit in him. Beale is speaking Hegelian language. He is speaking the language of the world spirit. Jordan shared a quote from Weber page 1113. If you are the master than you are not ordinary. There has to be something special about you. This is talking about the leader. The idea is Charismatic leader vs the bureaucratic leader. These are two new keywords and the definitions will be given on Thursday.
Howard Beale's antithesis was Arthur Jensen, when he brings Beale into this office and plays the world spirit. He says to Beale, "I can sell anything Mr. Beale. Let's see if I can sell something to you." Then he plays the world spirit to change Beale's idea of the world spirit.
We are leaving out questions on if dialectic is true or not since you cannot prove that its not true. Once a person has Hegel or Ranke so deeply embedded they take that understanding and use it to manipulate people. There will be more discussion on this on Thursday.
So for Thursday there are no new readings, however you should review the readings based on discussion. We will get a good definition of new keywords charismatic and bureaucratic. We will also talk big time about the economics.
First draft of external writing is due on Thursday. First thing to notice is that this is not an academic writing. Second thing is that we do not want to separate explanation and argument. Bring in the hard copy to peer edit.
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